miércoles, 1 de febrero de 2012

GIUDA interview. English version.

This is our small interview to GIUDA, who will be playing here in Spain in a few days. Excuse my bad English, in two days the interview will be published in Spanish.
Thanks to Lorenzo for their time.

. how GIUDA came about. Could you tell us about the history of the band?

Tenda (vocals), Danilo (bass) and I played together for many years in a band called Taxi, but we broke up in 2007 after releasing our second album, following the sudden passing of our drummer Francesco. Later that year we reformed as Giuda, and went through a couple of lineup changes after that, which is when Michele (guitar) and Daniele (drums) joined our ranks.

. why did you decide to play Glam-influenced music?

Well, I've always been a fan of bands like Slade, Sweet, Mud and Suzy Quattro. But it was after listening to compilations such as Velvet Tinmine that I became so passionate about the whole genre. A quick Internet search led me to Purepop, Robin Will's blog, where I found out about an ever larger number of lesser known bands. By the time the old members of Taxi came back together after the breakup we agreed that we’d try to do something different... and thus Giuda were born.

. do you think there is currently a glam revival?

Thanks to a series of solid compilations devoted to that scene and some great blogs, such as Purepop, CrazeeKid Sound and Proudfoot Sound (run by yours truly), constantly digging out obscure nuggets from that era, more and more people are becoming fans of the genre. Hopefully Giuda will help to spread the word even further, driving more bands into follow the musical steps of all those awesome bands from the first half of the 70’s. After all, there are already more than enough punk rock bands around.

Dead Beat has been our main label ever since the Taxi days. They released both of Taxi's LPs and a couple of singles. Tom is a really nice person, and he have always done a great job when it comes to distribution and all that, so when the Giuda record was finished Dead Beat were the first label we approached. Besides, I'm not sure other labels would've been interested, given that we're a rather unknown band.

. are you happy with the record reception?

Absolutely. We received an incredible amount of positive reviews and feedback. The two 7"es and the LP have all sold out in a matter of months. To be honest, I didn't expect it was going to receive so much interest.

. which are your next projects and releases?

We’re writing some new songs that hopefully will end up in our next record, but that’ll take some time. In the meantime I think the 7”es and the LP will all be re-released, featuring some slightly different sleeve art. All the graphics will still be done by the one and only Tony CrazeeKid.

. Roma, London, Paris ... and soon Madrid and Berlin, is it a GIUDA invasion? how is the public in those different cities?

So far we’ve been lucky to be given a warm reception wherever we’ve played. We’ve enjoyed a good following in Rome and in the rest of Italy since the days of Taxi, but with Giuda this seems to have spread to the rest of Europe too. Our gig in Paris for example was absolutely fantastic. We’re playing Madrid soon, then we’ll go to Berlin in the spring for the Punk & Disorderly festival. We’ve also just started to put together a two weeks tour of the US.

. it's a privilege that Tony Crazeekid made the artwork of your singles and LP, how born the relationship with him?

I got friends with Tony because in the past we’ve exchanged some singles through mail and because we both run similar blogs. Obviously having him doing our cover art is a real privilege, and even more so because I know he’d never work with a band that he didn’t like. Nobody could have come up with a more apt image for Giuda, and I’m sure that we’ve also got his graphics to thank for the good reception our records have been getting. He’s basically part of the band at this point!

. I've seen in youtube your "bortals boys" cover, what another covers can we enjoy in your set?

We used to do “Down Down” by Status Quo, but its place has now been taken by “Borstal Boys”. We’ve also tried to cover Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” and some songs from Slade, but they didn’t sound all that well. I’d love to include a cover in our next record, maybe a glam rock take of “Yellow Submarine”, or Vanda & Young's “Yesterday’s Hero”, or something by the Move... we’ll see!